Very Computer

I have just upgraded a RH 4.1 to RH5.2. I noticed that there are a
number of RAMdisks being created when the system boots up. Any idea
what are they used for? Is it advisible to remove them to save memory?

Choon-Cheng Chee
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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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* remove stopspam to e-mail me *

I imagine you are referring to the "Created 16 RAMdisks of 4096 bytes"
message that appears on boot.  Don't worry about it.

No memory is used until you actually allocate the RAM disks (with
mke2fs /dev/ram[x]).

Yes, exactly. 8)

Quote:

>No memory is used until you actually allocate the RAM disks (with
>mke2fs /dev/ram[x]).

Ok.. Any idea what they are created for?

Thx!

Choon-Cheng Chee
=========================
chee at mail-me dot com
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
=========================
* Watch my return address! Editing required !*

...

Quote:>>I imagine you are referring to the "Created 16 RAMdisks of 4096 bytes"
>>message that appears on boot.  Don't worry about it.

>Yes, exactly. 8)

>>No memory is used until you actually allocate the RAM disks (with
>>mke2fs /dev/ram[x]).

>Ok.. Any idea what they are created for?

They are shells (templates, sort of) - so that you can make real ram
disks out of them if you choose to.  Note that, in the kernel (and
kernel sources) as shipped, RAM disks are limited to 4MB (4096K).  You can
fiddle with a kernel parameter and recompile if you want bigger ones.

Quote:> >No memory is used until you actually allocate the RAM disks (with
> >mke2fs /dev/ram[x]).

> Ok.. Any idea what they are created for?

The kernel you run is the same as the one used for the install; the
ramdisk is used as the root device while installing Linux.

--

Thanks!

On 03 Jan 1999 21:19:43 +0000, James Youngman

I just install RH 5.2, and didn't touch the kernel since then. Does
that mean I need to redo the kernel to get rid of them? Do they
actually take up any memory (I didn't allocate the RAM disk)?

If they won't cause negative impact, I am just going to leave them
alone. 8)

Thx!

The inital ram disk is only required to load the scsi driver before
mounting the root file system.  If you don't have scsi you don't need
the inital ram disk and the install procedure won't make one.

In any case the space used by the initial ram disk will be released as
soon as the real root file system is mounted.

Villy

I don't have SCSI. I wonder why they were created, and I doubt I have
specified SCSI support. Nevermind... I will leave them alone.

Thx for the reply! 8)

Choon-Cheng Chee
=========================
chee at mail-me dot com
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
=========================
* Watch my return address! Editing required !*